Palatine avoids elimination with 9-5 victory

Palatine showed how resilient it is Saturday in the Great Lakes American Legion baseball regional tournament in Appleton, Wis.

The Blue Jays suffered a tough second-round loss in the afternoon 3-1 on 2 ninth-inning runs to Nor-Gwyn, Pa. But they rebounded to stay alive in the double-elimination tourney with a 9-5 win over Sandusky, Ohio.

"That loss definitely woke us up," said Palatine outfielder Mike Tauchman, who went 3-for-5 with 3 RBI in the victory. "Everybody was pretty excited to play (Friday) night and we lost some of our energy overnight. Now we were fighting for our lives at the end here."

Tauchman will get the start today for Palatine (27-9). The pairings were adjusted so teams wouldn't face someone they've already played, so coach Jeff Ryder said the Blue Jays would probably play at 4 p.m. against Hammond (Ind.).

UIC-bound Mike Schoolcraft came through against Sandusky. The right-hander allowed just 4 hits and 4 earned runs in 7 innings and had 8 strikeouts and 3 walks.

"He was wonderful," Ryder said. "It was the best outing he's had all year."

Schoolcraft had missed time at the end of the high school season and beginning of the summer with arm trouble.

"That was probably as good as I've ever seen him," Tauchman said of his former Fremd teammate. "He was locating his curveball well and his fastball had a lot of hop on it late into the game."

Nick Addison (2-for-4) had an RBI single in a 2-run third. Ryan Shober had a 3-run homer in a 5-run fifth before having to leave with back problems.

Matt Johnsen and Joey DePaolis also had 2 hits, and Zenon Kolakowski had an RBI single.

Clint Terry, who won the opener, came in with the bases loaded and no outs in the eighth. He got a double play off a comebacker and a strikeout to finish the threat and pitched a hitless ninth for the save.

Johnsen threw a complete-game 4-hitter against Nor-Gwyn with 10 strikeouts and 2 walks, but Ryder said he was victimized by bloop hits in a tiebreaking ninth. Terry had tied the game in the bottom of the seventh with a homer.

"We should have never lost to that team," Ryder said. "We just couldn't get it going and they made some great defensive plays against us."